The One That Stays With You

13

It was a happy ending for Captain Johnson. The clown hadn't been there for him as much as Trooper Davis and Deputy Austin. He had seen his own horrors in life that would stay with him until he went to the grave. The perpetrators and their crimes may have been different. Evil was evil. No matter its face, it was only a renewal of flaws in the human soul and a reminder of the shallow steps we have taken on our own morality. There would be another in time. There was no question about that, and Johnson retired having come to terms with that knowledge.

When Johnson stepped out, Austin was stepping in. There wasn't really a ceremony. As Johnson passed the torch of leadership along, the budget, or lack thereof, came with it. They had a celebration nevertheless. The former Captain gave a tear-jerker speech that ended with him handing over his shield. After, they would stand alone in the main office in another exchange of pride and certainty about the future. Austin would do well at the helm. He had all the tools for it, and Johnson didn't have to worry about any affairs. Not that he really would if things had gone a different way.

It was Austin who gave the eulogy years later. Mentor and friend had a thin line between them. The slow mornings and days Trooper Davis had spent complaining over were filled with excuses to sit on the former Captain's porch to shoot the shit. Johnson made a decent pot of coffee during those times that came so frequently. Austin gabbed and kept him in the loop right up until the end, when the age of advice was no longer needed and right on time. The star would be placed inside the casket in a show of respect.

Austin never married as he figured he was already married to the job. Lots of people did that, didn't they? He became a legend in his own right, and like Johnson, he had nothing but admiration from his peers. Even going as far as to not think of them as his underlings the way some assholes like to carry it. Along the way, he had accumulated his share of trophy marks and gathered a few headlines with his name in the title. Nothing glamourous in the great north. Drug busts and a couple high-speed chases. One or two high-profile collars that didn't equate to more than a mention from the governor. That was the job. He wouldn't have it any other way.

It happened two years after Johnson passed on to the blue sky. A regular traffic stop on the highway made more dangerous as the plateless vehicle hadn't pulled over far enough. Austin asked for the usual license and registration before a minivan sideswiped him and sent him thirty feet in the air and forty feet down the way.

It was bad. Austin wouldn't survive.

What is curious and no one would ever know this little detail as it would be taken with Austin's life.

In a split second or two during the initial moments of impact, Austin saw the driver that hit him. What he saw in those last moments was a clown in the driver's seat. One with a bleeding red smile.

No one reported seeing a clown that day.